1. Field of the Invention
With the seminal discovery by Kohler and Milstein that one could fuse a spleen cell from an immunized mouse with an appropriate myeloma cell and the resulting hybrid cell would produce monoclonal antibody in vitro, it became feasible to prepare antibodies which had high specificity for a particular spatial and polar organization. The original work was concerned with obtaining a homogeneous antibody population which recognized an antigen peculiar to a particular cell, namely a sheep red blood cell.
The ability to develop antibodies for specific antigens offered opportunities to develop antibody compositions which might be used in analytical and therapeutic ways. One area of interest is the cell surface membrane, which contains a mixture of antigenic materials. Among the potential antigenic materials are histocompatability antigens, polysaccharides, as well as other membrane proteins.
In a number of situations, one may wish to distinguish between two cells, which for the most part have the same antigenicity, but differ as to one or more antigenic determinants. Illustrative of these types of cells are T-cells and B-cells, which come from the same stem cell. The cells have different properties and functions depending upon whether they are processed by the thymus or bursa equivalent. Other situations where cells may differ in minor but extremely significant ways are cancer cells from normal cells, alloantigenic differences, or the like. It would therefore be desirable to have a method for preparing antibodies which would specifically distinguish between related cells or other aggregates of antigens, so as to permit determination of the aggregation having the antigenic site(s) of interest.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Specific antigens on human T-lymphocytes have been detected using heteroantisera raised against T-lymphocytes or human thymus cells, but only after repeated absorptions with non-T-cells. Smith et al. J. Immunol. 110, 884-887 (1973); Williams et al. J. Clin. Invest. 52 283-295 (1973) and Bobrobe et al., J. Immunol. 112, 520-527 (1974). Kohler and Milstein disclosed ways for producing hybrid cell lines secreting monoclonal antibodies of defined specificity (Nature, 256 495-497 (1975) to human polymorphic antigens, such as blood group A and HLA-A2. See also, Barnstable et al. Cell, 14, 9-20 (1978) and Parham and Bodmer, Nature 276, 397-399 (1978).